LAW OF THE LAND

Louisiana hails Judge Moore-inspired bill

Act would prevent courts from ruling on acknowledgement-of-God issues

Ron Strom is commentary editor of WND, a post he took after serving as a news editor since 2000. Prior to coming on board with WND, Strom worked in politics in California. Married and the father of two homeschool graduates, he has served in leadership positions in his church, local nonprofit boards and in county government.

The Louisiana Legislature has approved a resolution urging Congress to pass the Constitution Restoration Act, a bill that would prohibit federal courts from ruling in cases involving government officials who acknowledge God “as the sovereign source of law, liberty or government.”

During a special session this month to address Katrina recovery issues, Sen. Mike Smith, a Democrat, introduced Senate Concurrent Resolution 30, which passed the body by a 34-0 vote. The measure passed the state House by acclamation.

The first of its kind in the nation, the resolution finds that “… the federal judiciary has overstepped its constitutional boundaries and ruled against the acknowledgement of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty and government by local and state officers and other state institutions, including state schools. …”

The measure urges Congress to pass the Constitution Restoration Act of 2005, saying that by doing so lawmakers would be “protecting the ability of the people of Louisiana to display the Ten Commandments in public places, to express their faith in public, to retain God in the Pledge of Allegiance, to retain ‘In God We Trust’ as our national motto, and to use Article III, Section 2.2 of the United States Constitution to except these areas from the jurisdiction of the United States Supreme Court.”

As WorldNetDaily reported, the legislation, H.R. 1070 and S. 520, sponsored in the House by Rep Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., and in the Senate by Sen Richard Shelby, R-Ala., was birthed in the aftermath of the ouster of former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was sanctioned by the courts for acknowledging God by way of a Ten Commandments monument in the state’s judicial building. Moore, now a Republican candidate for governor, is a constituent of both lawmakers and was instrumental in drafting the measure.

Touted by some supporters as one of the most important pieces of legislation in U.S. history, the bill states:

The Supreme Court shall not have jurisdiction to review, by appeal, writ of certiorari, or otherwise, any matter to the extent that relief is sought against an element of Federal, State, or local government, or against an officer of Federal, State, or local government (whether or not acting in official personal capacity), by reason of that element’s or officer’s acknowledgement of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government.

The legislation also addresses what many high-court watchers consider a dangerous trend: Supreme Court justices looking to foreign law and rulings for guidance when deciding cases. States the bill:

In interpreting and applying the Constitution of the United States, a court of the United States may not rely upon any constitution, law, administrative rule, Executive order, directive, policy, judicial decision, or any other action of any foreign state or international organization or agency, other than the constitutional law and English common law.

Under the bill, any judge who violates the proposed rule by making “extrajurisdictional” decisions will have committed an offense that is grounds for impeachment.

The House version currently has 44 co-sponsors, while the Senate bill has eight.

Retired Judge Darrell White, who lives in Baton Rouge, La., and is founder of Retired Judges of America, praised the Legislature’s action, highlighting on his blog a recent survey by the Anti-Defamation League showing that 64 percent of the American people believe religion is “under attack,” and 53 percent say religion as a whole is “losing its influence in American life.”

Wrote White in a op-ed piece published in the Baton Rouge Advocate: “[The Constitution Restoration Act] – the ACLU’s worst nightmare – would eliminate Michael Newdow as a topic of conversation. We should have done it a generation ago.”